Cinema and Television in Singapore Social Sciences in Asia

Cinema and Television in Singapore Social Sciences in Asia Edited by Vineeta Sinha Syed Farid Alatas Chan Kwok-bun VOLUME 16 Cinema and Television in Singapore Resistance in One Dimension By Kenneth Paul Tan LEIDEN • BOSTON 2008 Front cover photograph © Kenneth Paul Tan This book is printed on acid-free paper. A C.I.P. record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISSN 1567-2794 ISBN 978 90 04 16643 1 Copyright 2008 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. printed in the netherlands table of contents v TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Illustrations . vii Acknowledgments . ix Introduction . xi Chapter One One-Dimensional Singapore . 1 Chapter Two The Culture Industry in Renaissance-City Singapore . 37 Chapter Three Singapore Idol: Consuming Nation and Democracy . 77 Chapter Four Under One Ideological Roof: TV Sitcoms and Drama Series . 107 Chapter Five Imagining the Chinese Community through the Films of Jack Neo . 145 Chapter Six The Tragedy of the Heartlands in the Films of Eric Khoo . 185 Chapter Seven The Films of Royston Tan: Local Notoriety, International Acclaim . 219 Conclusion . 253 Appendix A: Cited Television Programs and Episodes . 269 Appendix B: Cited Films by Jack Neo, Eric Khoo, and Royston Tan . 271 References . 275 Index . 291 vi table of contents list of illustrations vii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Figure 5-1: Still from I Not Stupid (2002) . 166 Figure 5-2: Still from Homerun (2003) . 171 Figure 5-3: Still from The Best Bet (2004) . 172 Figure 5-4: Still from I Do, I Do (2005) . 175 Figure 5-5: Still from One More Chance (2005) . 177 Figure 5-6: Still from I Not Stupid Too (2006) . 180 Figure 5-7: Still from Just Follow Law (2007) . 182 Figure 6-1: Still from Mee Pok Man (1995) . 196 Figure 6-2: Still from Mee Pok Man (1995) . 198 Figure 6-3: Still from 12 Storeys (1997) . 201 Figure 6-4: Still from 12 Storeys (1997) . 203 Figure 6-5: Still from 12 Storeys (1997) . 204 Figure 6-6: Still from 12 Storeys (1997) . 205 Figure 6-7: Still from 12 Storeys (1997) . 205 Figure 6-8: Still from One Leg Kicking (2001) . 212 Figure 6-9: Still from Be with Me (2005) . 217 Figure 6-10: Still from Be with Me (2005) . 217 Figure 7-1: Still from Hock Hiap Leong (2001) . 224 Figure 7-2: Still from The Old Man and the River (2003) . 226 Figure 7-3: Still from New York Girl (2005) . 229 Figure 7-4: Still from Monkeylove (2005) . 234 Figure 7-5: Still from Sons (2000) . 236 Figure 7-6: Still from Mother (2002) . 237 Figure 7-7: Still from 4:30 (2006) . 238 Figure 7-8: Still from 15 (feature film) (2003) . 240 viii list of illustrations Figure 7-9: Still from 48 on AIDS (2002) . 244 Figure 7-10: Still from Cut (2004) . 247 Figure 7-11: Promotional poster for 881 (2007) . 251 Figure 8-1: Still from Singapore GaGa (2005) . 263 Figure 8-2: Still from Singapore Rebel (2005) . 267 acknowledgments ix ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This book is the result of a political scientist’s attempt to understand the political significance, possibilities, and limitations of art and popular culture in contemporary Singapore, a young and ultra- modern city-state with global aspirations that are beginning to transform the authoritarian strains of government, market, and culture into more complex and less stable articulations of often contradictory ideas, values, and practices. Singapore’s creative talent in these interesting times do not simply propagate the ideas of the dominant classes, but can now find new spaces and resources for critiquing the status quo, presenting new imaginative realms of possibility, or maneuvering more subtly for negotiated positions in a dynamic struggle for hegemony. Others among Singapore’s creative talent adopt a spirit of playfulness that distances itself from, and yet participates fully in, the dominant cultural and political discourses. However, dynamic struggles and an ironic spirit are not completely open-ended, but seriously limited by parameters defined by the powerful logic of authoritarian capitalism that continues— in cunning ways—to transform oppositional, resistant, and alternative expressions into profitable and system-supporting commodities that circulate in a culture of thoughtless and undiscerning consum- erism. My academic interest in film and television began in 2000 when I started teaching political science modules in the University Schol- ars Programme at the National University of Singapore (NUS), an interdisciplinary undergraduate program that made innovative use of multimedia. Films, in particular, were useful materials for viv- idly illustrating abstract political science concepts to students; and, as sites of political activity, they eventually became in my mind primary objects of political science analysis. In some respects, they were missing pieces of the analytical puzzle that Singapore politics had been, and continues to be, for me. Soon, I began teaching an advanced module on the politics of art and popular culture in the Political Science Department at NUS. I am grateful to my students for the lively conversations and debates in class during which many of my ideas were formulated, challenged, and developed. x acknowledgments This book was completed during my transition from the Political Science Department to the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy where, in spite of new responsibilities as Assistant Dean, I found some time to write because of a supportive Dean in Kishore Mah- bubani. I am grateful to Vineeta Sinha, Gui Kai Chong, and Fu Poshek whose advice and encouragement have been key to getting the manuscript published; to Low Wai Wan for invaluable edito- rial advice; and to Lily Kong who always took an interest in my research, offering help at the most opportune moments. My wife Clara and family members Adeline, Philip, and Bernice have been more than patient, and I thank them for their support. In 2005, I met a new graduate of the Engineering faculty at NUS, Tan Bee Thiam, who was passionate about making, discuss- ing, and promoting Asian film. He was on a mission to set up a non-profit, non-government organization to “save, explore and share the art of Asian cinema,” and he approached me to chair its Board of Directors. I’m glad I accepted his invitation: within a short span of three years, the Asian Film Archive has collected no fewer than 900 films from the region; set up a public DVD library; produced two commercially distributed DVDs from its collection; conducted regular media literacy workshops; and programmed screenings, conferences, forums, and workshops by important Asian film directors. I proudly dedicate this book to the Asian Film Archive: its directors, staff, volunteers, and supporters who, against the logic of one-dimensional society, have turned a collective passion into a vi- able organization. introduction xi INTRODUCTION Articulating Critical Theory and Cultural Studies This is a book that explores, through a close study of contemporary made-in-Singapore films and television programs, the possibilities and limitations of resistance through art and popular culture within a one-dimensional society, defined as an industrialized and glo- balized capitalist society whose oppressions, repressions, exploitations, contradictions, tensions, and crisis tendencies have been contained, controlled, manipulated, and hidden by deeply entrenched authoritarian institutions, practices, beliefs, habits, and instincts. The nature and extent of this resistance can be determined within an analytical space defined by two theoretical limits that draw from the work of the Frankfurt School, whose members, in- tellectually rooted in the traumatic experiences of Nazi Germany, worked in ‘exile’ for a significant time in the US, where some of their intellectual energies were directed toward critical research on the irrational and authoritarian strains that they identified in Amer- ican society (Jay 1973). Through a political economy perspective of cultural production, these intellectuals critically theorized how mass culture, as opposed to autonomous art, not only supported ideologically the systemic authoritarianism of a one-dimensional capitalist society, but had itself become materially subsumed into the system as potentially lucrative products of the culture industry. This is the first theoretical limit: the principle of complete encap- sulation. The second, the principle of pure autonomy, was envisioned in autonomous art which—freed from the necessary laws of the market, politics, and morality—was idealized as a purely alternative realm of possibilities, the imaginary basis of a Great Refusal of the status quo. Taken seriously, these theoretical limits will serve as important parameters for an analysis of resistance that draws from the work of the now-defunct Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS) in Birmingham, England: a more empirical approach that negates the elitist and exclusionary tendencies of the Frankfurt

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